This classical pianist rediscovered his love for music after robotic vacuums and a Giant Robot

When he was in his early 20s, Pasadena-based musician George Ko was an up-and-coming pianist, following a classic path to classical music by playing pieces from Mozart, Beethoven and other masters at venues such as Carnegie Hall.

But then Ko hit pause on his professional music career to work the business world and it took the pandemic to push the now 29-year-old back into touring and recording full-time.

Except now, fans of classical music will never know what to expect at his shows because the new Ko is all about improvisation as he blends his classical talents with the unpredictability of a jazz jam.

“When you’re a classical player, because you’re playing other people’s music, and most of the time you’re playing dead people’s music, you want to create your own (expletive), you wanna create your own music, you wanna be Jimi Hendrix, you want to be Coltrane and Dizzy. You want to make your own stuff and I always wanted to improvise on the piano,” said Ko, who is on the tail-end of a national tour that lands him next at Row DTLA for a handful of shows in late November and December.

He’s touring following the October release of his sixth recording since the pandemic began, an EP titled “Forest on the Moon.”

“Every song I play is completely improvised, nothing is written down. Just how a jazz player improvises a solo, I do that but it’s the whole song and my theoretical understanding of music is classical,” he said.

Get focused

Raised in Laguna Niguel in Orange County, Ko got into piano not out of passion for music but because his mom made him do it.

“It wasn’t love at first sight,” he said.

His mom, who he said always dreamed of being a concert pianist, enrolled him in piano classes after Ko said he was incorrectly diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder because she thought it would help him focus.

“So when I was 5 my mom took me to my first piano lesson and I hated it. When the teacher wasn’t looking I would just dart and run away from the piano,” he said.

But he kept at it and showed great promise as a musician. By the time he was 15 he started playing solo shows at places such as Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Locally, he performed with the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and at the Steinway Gallery Pasadena, where he was also accepted into the Young Steinway Artist program.

Ko later attended Harvard University, at first focusing on economics until he eventually majored in music while continuing to perform in as many shows as he could.

But around the age of 23 the pressure of trying to play flawless classical shows was weighing him down.

“For me, I love playing classical music but it’s pretty mentally traumatizing,” he said.

“Every time you play a gig it’s incredibly stressful. I love being on stage but for classical it’s like the fear of preparing because expectations when you go on stage are you’re expected to make zero mistakes,” he said.

That’s when he decided to slow the music down a bit and only play a few shows here and there while shifting his focus to the business world.

So in 2017 he went on to co-found Giant Robot Media, an online publication that focuses on Asian culture.  A year later, he and his brother co-founded robotic vacuum company Coral Robots, before Ko eventually landed a job at CalTech in October 2020 as director of strategic partnerships.

Improv time

But before he got the new day job at CalTech, the COVID-19 quarantine began. With nothing to do, in April 2020 Ko began posting weekly concerts on Instagram where without the pressure of having to live up to traditional classical standards, he suddenly discovered an ability to improvise on the piano.

“I was shocked, I had never been able to improvise on the piano my whole life and now all of the sudden I can, so I got really excited,” he said.

That same month he decided to record his first 12-track album in a two-hour session of improvisational music. The end result was called “Sonic Sanctum,” the first of his recordings featuring his new improvisational style.

“He’s great for music,” said Anthony Gilroy, director of marketing for Steinway, who has known Ko for a few years.

“He’s very good at making classical music exciting and accessible for the masses,” Gilroy said, referring to Ko’s improvisational style.

Things took off quickly for Ko after he kept releasing more music on social media platforms which led to his current nearly 20-stop national tour and even a gig composing music for the new Salt-N-Pepa biopic on Lifetime.

Ko no longer works at CalTech, deciding instead to jump back into music full-time, except this time, playing classical on his own terms.

“For the first time in my entire life, the way I’m playing the piano and sharing my music and it doesn’t feel like any work at all, this is like breathing for me,” he said.

George Ko

When: Noon Nov. 27-28, Dec. 4 and 18

Where: Row DTLA, 777 Alameda St., Los Angeles

Cost: Free

Information: georgeko.co